Twitter: 280 characters, 350,000 bad jokes

No longer will Twitter users have to condense their thoughts to a mere 140 characters - the majority will now have double that to play with. The US National Basketball Referees Association cautiously hoped the elevated character limits may usher in a new era of calm, reasonable and grammatically coherent Twitter discourse. Social media user Brian Adams was among many who used their extra characters to demand a different innovation. In a blog post announcing the news, Twitter said just 5% of tweets sent during the trial were longer than 140 characters. "We - and many of you - were concerned that timelines may fill up with 280 character tweets, and people with the new limit would always use up the whole space," said product manager Aliza Rosen.